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E3 2009: Microsoft Press Conference Live Blog

10:50 a.m.: Here's the game that many of us have been waiting for. It's Modern Warfare 2, and we're being treated to the first live gameplay demo. It's apparently an arctic assault, with Captain MacTavish and our hero donning their cold weather gear to stealthily assault an icy headquarters. The plan of attack? Scale up a vertical cliff face with ice axes, the kind of suicidal method of entry that only the SAS would consider sane.

A new rifle attachment is shown, a flip-out screen that serves as tactical radar. It displays hostiles in a frontal cone, stripping this information from the UI and turning it into something far more realistic.

The firefights are as intense as you would expect from Modern Warfare, including an interesting melee kill move that was used to dismount an enemy on a snowmobile. One of those climbing hooks to the chest worked perfectly to secure a ride.

The ensuing snowmobile combat scene is intense. It's a high-speed downhill course where you're racing and picking off enemies with your pistol. The crowd loves it, and it looks like crazy fun.

10:55 a.m.: Final Fantasy XIII's Game Director Motomo Toriyama takes the stage. This is perhaps the system's most highly anticipated RPG. Lightning and Sazn (pronounced "suds?") are the two characters on-screen.

Odin is summoned to a shower of cherry blossoms and pink crystalline structures. It's a very short demo, but this is a pretty game. I can see myself dumping a couple hundred hours into it if the combat system is interesting.

11:00 a.m.: Everything from here on out is exclusive to the Xbox 360. Cliff Bleszinski takes the stage along with Donald Mustard, in charge of developing the first Epic Xbox Live Arcade title, Shadow Complex. It's a fairly attractive-looking action platformer with tons of unlockables and lots of side-scrolling and vertical movement.

A nifty foam gun can be used to freeze enemies, create cover, or build platforms. There's a hook shot, a triple jump, and other armaments that allow for tremendous movement options. We're shown a big boss battle against a giant mechanical tarantula, and the immediate comparison I draw is with Bionic Commando. Looks like a good, straightforward action-platformer that will definitely be worth looking into.

Joy Rider is the next Xbox Live Arcade game, and it's a very cartoony-looking racing sort of affair. They're pushing the ability to trick out your avatar, which nearly puts me to sleep. Please, no more of this avatar stuff!

That's what! Zombies, lots of them, and four new characters taking them out with chainsaws and bullets. It's Left 4 Dead 2, and it looks stylish and intense, even if it's just a cinematic sequence.

11:15 a.m.: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction puts on an impressive demo. Lots of really cool infiltration, but also plenty of intense action. You really need to have seen the movie to get the full impression of how cool the combat sequences look in action. New weapons include an EMP grenade, and the firefights look over-the-top and charged with adrenaline.

11:20 a.m.: The definitive racing game for this generation, we're told, is coming, and its name is Forza Motorsport 3. It's definitely beautiful, I have to agree. We're shown an intense race from the cockpit view, resulting in a bad crash where the car flips upside-down. Features include hundreds of cars, one-button driving, and gameplay rewind, focusing, it seems, on accessibility. New community features include the ability to upload high-def video.

11:25 a.m.: Here it is, Halo ODST. An orbital drop goes terribly wrong, and the rookie wakes up with bleary eyes in the city of New Mumbasa, weeks before the start of Halo 3. His on-screen display is interesting, subtly different from that of Master Chief, but retaining that distinctive Halo look. As an orbital shock drop trooper separated from his team, you get the impression that the character is terrified, breathing hard as he gets his bearings. ODSTs have access to special gear that Spartans don't, including two sound-suppressed weapons and the visor, with a low-light vision mode. The Halo 1 pistol is the inspiration for the ODST pistol, which takes out a couple grunts with single shots. It's coming September 27th.